


Caillen

by Bermuda_Grass



Series: Nomenclature [1]
Category: The Glass Scientists (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Stream of Consciousness, There's no plot here, also I just think we deserve more Jeykll and Creature interactions, basically just me thinking an unhealthy amount about the creature and his existential dread
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:34:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27824599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bermuda_Grass/pseuds/Bermuda_Grass
Summary: Frankenstein gave him no name, but Jeykll did.
Relationships: I just think they're neat - Relationship, I wrote it to be platonic, Pseudo-father son type thing, The Creature & Dr. Henry Jekyll
Series: Nomenclature [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080002
Comments: 4
Kudos: 61





	Caillen

In the late hours of the night, when he is alone and the darkness wraps around him like the protective shroud of a blanket, the Creature sometimes tries to remember. He tries to remember life before the one that was thrust upon him. His God-given life, not the pale imitation that he has now. He'll try to remember anything, a face, a voice, a feeling. He never does, he's not sure why he keeps trying. The only thing he can dredge up is the blissful void he'd been sleeping in. The perfect silence and the total darkness that he can almost emulate if he closes his eyes and lets his mind drift. 

It's not the same. 

A part of him wishes he could remember his life as a man, a true man who walked among others. A part of him wonders if it's kinder this way, to not know the life he lived, to not know of the warmth he'd had stripped away from him by a bastard with a God complex. He does wish he could remember a name, at the very least. He wishes for that earthly tether to humanity. His creator didn't think to give him one. Would she have, if he'd not been a failure? Would Frankenstein have given him a name? Would he have been a son to her and taken on her family moniker? Or would he simply be a favored pet instead of a feral dog in her eyes? Still not a man, but doted on like a pup. The creature can't say he hates the idea, he can't say he wouldn't scrabble for even that meager scrap bit of affection. 

She gave him no name.

He'd mocked her for it, all those years ago. Standing at the foot of her bed and staring with the eyes she loathed (and yet it was Victoria who had placed them in his skull so meticulously). He'd sneered, he'd said he ought to be called Adam. _Her_ Adam, for what was he to her if not a child she let loose into a world filled with fanged snakes. Perhaps Lillith would be more accurate. Cast out by the very one who shaped the soil that made him. Lillith was rather appropriate. 

His name was not Adam.

Creature suited him just fine in the walls of the society. It was hard to sting when people used it so jovially, but it still itches under his skin every time he's called upon in that way. No one had bothered to ask for a name, he was just Creature. It was better that way, less cruel. Even if they had asked he wouldn't have been able to give them one. So Creature was fine. He almost thought of it fondly with the way it rolled off of the tongue of the lodgers, whether it be them asking him to reach a high shelf or to help with one of their various projects. It had become soft around the edges compared to when he heard the title years ago. Everything about the society is softer than the world he'd been thrown into. He is still stared at, but it is with curiosity and childish excitement rather than fear. It's almost enough for him to forget. It is almost enough to wash away the torment that has shaped him at the hands of Man. Only almost. It only takes an ill-advised question, a prodding at the stitches that tie him together, to sharply remind him that he is not accepted by them. Not in the way he longs for. He is no more human in their eyes than to those who would rend him limb from limb. The kindness they extend to him is purely clinical, their interest in him professional. He is no more a man than the lab rats they procure. It is why they never ask for his name, for what scientists would name their lab animal? And still, he is content with it. He is more than eager to live in a house where he is allowed to simply exist without being condemned. He is an outcast, but he is tolerated, and that is more than he has ever been given before. He would take being an oddity over the cruel hands that reach for him just outside the walls of the Society.

Dr. Jeykll asks for a name.

The Creature almost doesn't realize the question was directed to him when it rolls off the doctor's tongue despite being the only one he could possibly be addressing. It is asked too easily, without hesitation or caution and the Creature thinks that it can't be for him to answer. But Dr. Jeykll pauses and looks at him expectantly even though he cannot give him what he wants. He tells him he does not care what he is called, he tells him Creature is fine because it aches less than having to admit that he is so utterly inhuman that he doesn't even have that. The man doesn't look convinced and he looks at him with a gaze that hits something in the Creature's core. His gaze flickers away in moments and the Creature cannot explain the pang of sorrow that hits him when the word Creature passes through Jeykll's lip. He can not explain the flinch as he hears it from him. He does not know why his heart (his stolen heart) soared in the instant their eyes locked as if Dr. Jeykll might see past the patchwork of scars and find a man inside the decayed flesh. There is no man there, if there was the Creature would have already torn through his stitches and wrenched him out. It hurts but he is sure it will ebb away, fading into the dull ache that takes up the place his soul should be. Creature is the kindest option, the only thing that he can control. He is a Creature, and it is better than a monster. Monsters are feared, creatures are at least pitied.

Dr. Jeykll never calls him Creature again.

Weeks go by and the Creature falls into a routine with the rest of the lodgers. He spends his time mainly by Frankenstein's side and the two share a silence that is not comfortable but drowns out any words that are left between them. He ventures out from the attic from time to time, usually at the request of one of the lodgers. He does not see Dr. Jeykll often, save for the times he comes by to treat Frankenstein. He watches the man, so invigorated by science and a light in his eyes that not even Frankenstein at her prime possessed. He is beautiful. He is beautiful in an intangible way, like the last rays of the sun as it hangs low just seconds before the darkness swallows the sky. He is beautiful in the way the Creature was supposed to be and he can't help but envy him. He can't help but envy Dr. Jeykll and his eyes every time he looks in the mirror and finds nothing but dull orbs. Lifeless things, soulless things that he wishes he could pluck out. It wouldn't change anything if he did, though. So the pale eyes stay in his skull, and he is still called Creature, and he basks himself in the soft rays that Dr. Jeykll gives off to the world. 

Caillen. 

The name rolls off of Dr. Jeykll's -Henry, he said it was ok to call him Henry- tongue without any fanfare or build-up. They are within the walls of the attic and Frankenstein is fast asleep. The Creature cradles a too-small cup of tea as Henry asks about his choice in literature. It is...peaceful. The informality, the ease of it all is foreign to him but the Creature is loathe to break the spell by shying away from it. No one has ever been so gentle in his presence. Even the lodgers, who are by no means scared of him, have demands of him that leave him exhausted. But here, in the small attic piled high with books, Henry sits in front of him with a warm smile and a quiet voice as he talks about the plot of "Treasure Island". The atmosphere is unlike anything the Creature has ever been a part of before and it lulls him as the turmoil that boils just beneath his flesh simmers quieter than it has in years. He almost missed the name entirely, all too enraptured in peaceful air to immediately feel the gravity of it. When he fully realizes just what Henry is offering to him the Creature feels like all the air has been vacuumed out of the room. There is a shattering sound and Henry is on his feet coming towards him. The doctor asks to see his hands and it is only then that the Creature notices that the cup he'd been cradling is broken. Henry is kneeling in front of him and meticulously trying to remove the small shards, apologizes spilling out from his mouth. He speaks so fast that his Scottish accent slips through the cracks as he tells the Creature that he is sorry, that he meant no offense, that he should have known he was intruding with the suggestion of a name. All the while he is holding the Creature's hand and brushing away glass with the tenderness of a parent. The creature does not know what to do, he is not used to this, he does not understand why Henry would care so deeply about his feelings on the matter of a name. 

"It is a rather nice name." 

The words leave his throat before he realizes it but he finds them to be true. They feel right to say, just as the name feels right. It feels correct in a way the Creature's never known and for the first time since his creation, he feels like he is whole. Henry beams at him like a father who has just taught their son to ride a bike and it knocks something loose in the Creature. The Creature has never cried before, but he feels the sharp sting in his eyes and the streams falling down his cheeks and he knows they are tears. Creatures do not weep, but he is not a creature any longer. He is a man with a name all his own. A name that is his and his alone. It is not another mark that Frankenstein has stained him with, it is his and she cannot lay claim to it.

Caillen is never called Creature within the walls of the society ever again. 


End file.
